MIDWEEK GAME - Wednesday 1st July

Chicago Red Stars v Washington Freedom Wed July 1 8.30pm ET Live on Webcam


The Chicago Red Stars will host one of the most successful national team players in U.S. women’s soccer history when Abby Wambach and the Washington Freedom come to town for a match Wednesday at TOYOTA PARK.

With 99 goals in 128 international matches, Wambach ranks fifth on the U.S. Women’s National Team all-time goal scoring list. The Rochester, N.Y., native has scored two goals for the Freedom (4-4-4, 16 pts) this season.

The Red Stars (2-6-5, 11 pts) enter the game on a nine-match winless streak and have played a Women’s Professional Soccer-record 403 consecutive minutes without a goal. Chicago sits just five points back of Washington in the WPS standings; the Freedom are currently in fourth position and possess the last playoff spot.

Wednesday marks the only midweek home game for the Red Stars this season, and Chicago will once again play shorthanded. Midfielder Chioma Igwe will miss the match after earning the first yellow card accumulation suspension in league history by drawing her fourth caution of the year during Saturday’s loss at Los Angeles.

The match will be available for fans to watch via webcast on www.chicagoredstars.com with both English and Spanish language audio feeds.

This past week, both the Freedom and the Red Stars were on the road. The Freedom traveled to Boston for a Wednesday game in a face-off between the second and third place teams in the WPS standings. The only goal of the game came off a free kick by Boston defender Heather Mitts, which found the head of Christine Latham and past Freedom goalkeeper Erin McLeod. Going into the second half down by a goal, the Freedom stepped up their play and had multiple opportunities to tie the game, but as the clock wound down the Freedom was unable to score and the game ended in a disappointing 1-0 loss.

The Red Stars faced the league-leading Los Angeles Sol on Saturday at the Home Depot Center in California. Sitting at the bottom of the standings, the Red Stars fought to gain a game on the Sol but instead conceded four goals and failed to score themselves. The Sol’s Shannon Boxx and Camille Abily scored in the first half, and Marta scored twice in the second half to put the game out of reach.

The question for both teams coming into the game this Wednesday is, who will score? The Chicago Red Stars have gone four consecutive games without scoring a single goal, and have only scored eight goals this season. Their team leaders in scoring, Lindsay Tarpley and Cristiane, have only two goals apiece. The Freedom finds itself in a similar, though not as drastic, scoring dearth. After going on a run during which they scored 13 goals in five games, the Freedom has now scored only twice in their last four games. With the Freedom’s leader in points, Sonia Bompastor (3 goals, 4 assists), now playing in the backline, the Freedom has struggled to make the most of their scoring opportunities. They will look to change all that this Wednesday against Chicago, while still maintaining their strong backline that has conceded just one goal in the last three games.